When it comes to relationships, I’m not so much Don Juan as Don Quixote. In fact I’ve only ever had one relationship and that was with a 12 year old girl; it’s not as bad as it sounds, I was 16 at the time. Ok, that does sound pretty bad. Still, I’m eager to improve my rather meagre track record and find myself a new girlfriend – preferably one who won’t have to worry about taking her SATS exams.
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| This is how girls see me. |
Unfortunately locating a female companion is considerably harder than one may think. First of all I’d have to suspend my cynical but arguably well founded belief that I’m un-datable and place faith in the possibility that there exists somewhere a woman with an attraction to Penfold from Danger Mouse. Even if we assume that said individual is a real, living entity with fully functional cognitive abilities and lacking any major defects (i.e., being in a permanent vegetative state or an admirer of James Cordon), the statistical probability of ever encountering her is so slim as to make anorexia look greedy.
So what to do? “Going out on the pull” is costly, entirely random and ultimately futile if you’re not of a certain physical standard. Speed dating is an option but tends to lure the worst of the worst; people whose inner beauty is so well hidden only an enema could locate it. Plus it’s only advantage over a regular date is that one receives the unavoidable rejection far sooner – and subsequently doesn’t have to buy them a drink. Clearly then the internet is the way to go. Or so I thought.
In actuality, dating websites feature the exact same barriers as the real world. Beautiful people meet other beautiful people, only where there were once drunken gropes on the dance floor there now exist virtual pokes and winks. The odds of meeting that special someone haven’t increased because all that’s changed is the construct in which we communicate. It’s the same social hierarchy of popularity only transposed from a corporeal location to a conceptual one – cyberspace. I’ve no more chance of attracting a Natalie Portman lookalike via the interweb than I would in a bar. And so jaded has my outlook become that were I to be contacted by a seemingly attractive young filly, my immediate response would be fear; fear that this is not in fact a female at all, but a psychotically perverse madman in a gimp costume.
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| If only they'd looked up, they would have saved £13.99 looking for each other. Embarrassing. |
Even stepping back from the philosophical considerations, internet dating is an extremely costly business. The fact that you’re being charged to meet these people (with whom you may subsequently have sex) makes it a sort of PG-rated prostitution. Now, I’m not condoning whoredom – it is after all both illegal and immoral (although is it really wrong to express your gratitude through monetary means?) but its one major advantage is the guarantee of sex. Match.com on the other hand will charge a monthly fee despite there being absolutely no certainty of a happy ending. And should you find that special someone, all the site has done is make that encounter possible - once again there is still no assurance that anything significant will transpire. This is the equivalent of not just having to pay the hooker but also her pimp for setting up the arrangement in the first place!
So where does that leave us? Well, rohypnol is always an option but only as a last resort and it must be noted that date rape rarely leads to a long-term relationship. Other than that, I’d say pure blind luck is your safest bet. And if that doesn’t comfort you, then consider this: A compatibility test which I recently undertook on eHarmony revealed that I was incompatible with everyone. I was told not to be despondent despite being mismatched with the entire planet.
See? Doesn’t that make you feel more optimistic about your love life? Now, where did I put that gimp costume?
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